Keepers of the Crown

by Lydia Redwine

  “An assassin was sent after her,” Cam finished as she swallowed the stone-hard lump which had formed in her throat. Her gaze lifted to meet the queen’s, and a fire was in her eyes. “You,” she seethed. “That’s how you know.” Cam was trembling with fury. But really was she to be surprised?

  Silva shook her head. “Not I. Whom this assassin was, I do not know. But he did not succeed unless it was his...or her plan to lead her into the Shadow Prisons.” Silva picked up the wood and held it out to Cam. “Return it to your sister, and tell her what I have said.”

  Silence filled the room as Silva returned to eating. Cam shifted in her seat, and her chains rattled slightly. “Do you...do you believe in Elyon?” Cam inquired without deciding she would ask such a question.

  Silva flicked her gaze and rose both brows. Slowly, the queen lowered her spoon into the dish before her. Her voice was a scoff. “Elyon,”shespat. “Isbut ashadowthatLeviathan chases. Perhaps that is why they call themselves Shadow Bearers. They bear the weight of a nonexisting enemy.”

  “Then the Crown...it means nothing to you if it weren’t the only thing that could free you,” Cam breathed. She couldn't believe what was being said. Silva didn’t even care about her master’s plan. It meant nothing to her.

  The queen was changing the subject. “Your next task will come at the seventh hour. Choose among you, three persons to participate.” Silva clapped her hands jovially. “I can hardly wait! The arena can be quite exciting.”

  Cam chilled, her bones stiffening. “What? Arena? But then, none of this should surprise me.”

  Silva was staring now, her eyes once again steel.

  Cam shivered. This room was too drafty. It was as if windows were open when in reality, they had been sealed shut.

  Silva’s mouth opened. “Before your task, however, I would like very much to prepare you.”

  Cam finally met the queen's gaze.

  Silva stared, her eyes narrowing as if she was reading every fiber of Cam's being. She tilted her head, those eyes glittering with the color of the dread rising in Cam's chest. She felt the Shadow Bearer behind her. Silva rose, and from her hand, came not silks and finery as Cam had guessed, but a long and narrow whip.

  Cam's heart thundered. “No…” her voice trembled. “What…”

  Silva's mouth split into a smile. “Prepare you in a way advantageous to me, of course.”

  She paused as the Shadow Bearer behind Cam set scaly hands on her shoulders and forced her to the throne room floor. Before the throne.

  “Take off your clothes, Camaria.” The voice was an icy whisper.

  “What?” Cam gritted out.

  A hand flashing. Her face stung. Silva was in her face, hissing. “Take. Off. Your. Clothes, Camaria. Or I'll rip them off myself.”

  Cam steadied her voice and hissed back, fury a storm in her chest. “But the chains...how will I fit the sleeves over them?”

  Hands were at her back. Cam cried out at the nails in her flesh, scraping skin as her shirt was torn. And then the front. The Shadow Bearer behind her and Silva ripping shreds from the front. Cold air hit Cam's chest, and she shivered in pain. Tears were already pressing in her eyes. “Why do you do this?” she cried out as Silva circled her. But she knew why. Or rather, didn't need to know the why.

  “Here is a taste, Camaria,” Silva began as she circled in front ofher again. “Ofwhat it will feellikeuntil youtellmewhere the Crown is.”

  Fire slashed Cam's back.

  She screamed, the sound curdling the air. She gritted her teeth, feeling as though her jaw would break as her flesh ripped open. “Tell. Me,” Silva bit out, “Where the Crown is, and this will cease.” Another slash. Fire licking flesh. Forcing another scream that burned the throat as much as the whip burned her back.

  Crack and sting. Crack and sting. Tear and dribble. Tear and dribble. And Cam couldn't even hear her own screams anymore. Not over the fire all around and the thundering of the storm her heart was amassing.

  Again. Again. Again…

  Silva was repeating the conditions. “The Crown, Camaria.” Her back was arching and then she was bent over, her spine seeming to split apart. “Shall I begin counting, Camaria?” Silva screamed over Cam's own agony. “So you can know the strokes I will take to achieve my own victory at any cost!” And Cam hated her name just then. Hated that everything was laid bare before her. She forced her jaw apart. Her mouth open and tongue lashing. She seethed. "Know the strokes it will take for me to survive before I rip out your own throat and place a crown of your own flesh on your head."

  Cam didn't regret the words even when Silva's eyes flashed with fury and the whip cracked again. A new spot open. Cam screamed, the sound colored with blood and sweat.

  Silva was counting.

  “One…” Crack and sting.

  “Two.” Bite and fire.

  “Three.” A ripping and dribble of blood.

  “Four.” Screams slicing the air.

  “Five.”

  And on and on and on and…

  Cam could not hear the numbers. She only saw shadows in her vision.

  And then nothing.

  “All the kings of the nations lie in glory, each in his own tomb; but you are cast out, away from your grave, like a loathed branch, clothed with the slain, those pierced by the sword, who go down to the stones of the pit, like a dead body trampled underfoot. You will not be joined with them in burial, because you have destroyed your land, you have slain your people.”

  -Elyon’s words to Lucius

  Twenty -Nine

  Riah slept for the entire day following the party which had

  lacked any kind of festive cheer. He awoke at dusk, his head spinning and throat feeling parched. He stumbled over to where the leftover food was laid out and ate until he had to throw it up.

  At last, when he had slumped in an armchair before a balcony overlooking the dragon keep, he began to think of Arria. He did not expect her to return to the fortress for a while. And why, he couldn't exactly tell. He knew something had happened. But it was blurred...

  “Do I feel anything for her?” he asked aloud through the open window. No one answered. He couldn’t even answer himself.

  A thought came to him in the silence. It had been a while since he had last ventured beneath the fortress. His skin tingled with the memory. And those eyes…

  He shuddered as if to shake the feeling from him before going to find a thin book in which Infernal Speech was penned. The book open, and Riah’s fingers slipped between its pages hurriedly as he searched and searched until he found a thin piece of parchment between to crumbling pages. “Here,” he breathed, his eyes falling on the figure of a dragon sketched into a corner. He stared at the words dipped in ink so red it must have been blood. And didn’t feel anything. He remembered. These words weren’t Infernal Speech but of a tongue he assumed was no longer used. From across the world, maybe.

  He had scratched his own words in the Middle Continental speech below it in translation as Leviathan had slowly told him the words. He recalled Leviathan's expression. It was one which had grown shadowed. The Shadow Bearer had hissed and thrown the book, but Riah had kept the parchment. He knew what was written there. The history of dragons where a man saved them. “Woman, actually,” Riah corrected himself as hescannedhis eyesover theinformationwritten there. “Hamia,” he read. “Protector.”

  The story stretched endlessly in Riah’s mind even when the words were few. He read his own lines translated in the tongue he had known from the time he could speak. And the fact that he could read the Infernal Speech instead of feeling it meant...that the Shadow Bearers had written this. Only those with some amount of human blood could do this.

  When the days of stars’ first reign, the dragons came to see the days of the first men wane. With fury mounted like spikes, the men drove their fear into the hearts of the dragons. And but one woman stood.

  Hamia. Protector.

  And with a heart of valor and kindness did she
save them, and the dragon’s tears engulfed the world, drowning the men in their own misdeeds. And thus, the age of the dragons has grown to one where they hate men but also love men and aid those who would, in turn, aid them.

  And that was why Leviathan had shown such distaste. Because men...because humans had saved these creatures. “That’s why I haven’t been marked yet. The dragons serve a human, not a Shadow Bearer.” Leviathan and Lucius had needed a human this whole time in order to have the dragons on their side. Riah swallowed hard. “What if they never mean to Mark me?”

  Riah’s eyes wandered up from the page, the book falling idly from his still hands. He shook his head and lifted his gaze to the open balcony. And he saw himself.

  In the form of the unknown dragon. Watchful. Relaxed. Yet...alone. Something tugged inside him. Something urging him to go to the creature. Riah crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head to train his eyes down the armor of scales. “What hides inside you?” he whispered. The creature barely even moved.

  “It is time,” Riah decided. Immediately, he darted to the gallery to gather his supplies. A bottle of black paint, brushes in four diverging sizes, purple and blacker for the sky beyond him that smoldered as a bruise. Dark green for the smudges of pine trees below. Gold for the rim of the creature’s eyes, and a large piece of canvas which had been bleached white.

  Riah dragged the canvas onto the small balcony and arranged his materials. Though Riah’s head was stillspinning he finally placed everything where he wanted them to be. The dragon still had not moved. As Riah’s brush swiped the canvas, the sky dimmed and brightened with a spray of deep navy blue and a dusting of purple. The stars appeared as blinking eyes from another world. As if the spirits of dragons themselves were gleaming down upon them.

  The universe poured from Riah’s brush with his dragon at the center.

  Then the name came. A whisper on the night breeze fallen from the stars themselves. An echo over the mountains and song through the trees. It came as Riah realized something. “He sits on that ledge every night watching. Protecting....” He had heard that the dragon of the lord was supposed to represent what the lord was supposed to be. “Perhaps I will be a protector one day, then…” Riah mused.

  But something contradictory prodded the back of his mind, something that rose from somewhere deep in his heart. “A protector wouldn't kill children. Wouldn't leave a man hanging…”

  But the name of the dragon was louder and more present. “Aminon,” he breathed. The words had been spoken in a tone which was barely audible, but the dragon seemed to hear. His head turned, eyeing Riah with a sparkling stare.

  Aminon knew his own name. Riah felt as though he had always had that name. And now it had been whispered across the worlds created by winds centuries between their births.

  Finally, with an exasperated sigh, Riah decided it was time to

  see Arria. Days had passed when he hadn't even seen signs of the giant birds. “Did I imagine it all?” Sometimes that happened. Imaginings of elaborate stories while lost in his painting. Riah leaned against the gate of the dragon keep and gazed out at the stretching forests and mountains.

  The only tricky thing about going to see her was that in order to get there he would have to ride one of the dragons. Or walk. The dragon seemed to be a better idea. But how exactly was he supposed to communicate to them that he needed a ride?

  And then there was the fact that he only knew Arria lived east. He did not know how far east. It couldn't be too far, though. A roc could fly from her fortress within an hour. But then, the rocs were giant birds who could fly unfathomable lengths. They were almost as big as…

  “Dragons,” Riah murmured. Riah not only put one tunic over his bare chest but also a warmer vest. Flying high meant colder air.

  When he entered the dragon keep, the creatures were sunning themselves lazily. They were each sprawled on the stone floor. All except Aminon, who was, as usual, perched on the ledge above.

  Riah approached the dragons who had lifted their heads to watch him. When Riah was before them, he scanned each of the creatures in turn. He was assessing which he was most comfortable to fly with. He chose Belle. Or rather, Belle chose him. She seemed to know what he was after and had thus scampered over bending her back enough to ask him to mount her.

  Riah hesitated a moment before he swung one leg over her and pulled himself up with a grunt. Sitting on a dragon was the most uncomfortable place he had ever sat. Horses were more comfortable than this, and from an early age, he had given up horseback riding because of how sore it would make him later.

  Belle’s hard and scaly exterior was scorching on his rear and his thighs. Not to mention that it was like sitting on a stone. He thought then how wonderful it would be to ride on one of the rocs. Soft feathers and...he thought of Gamgee and how disagreeable he was. At least, towards him.

  “Belle is better company, at least,” he thought. The other dragons seemed not to notice as Belle gave a mighty heave and lifted them both into the air.

  Riah’s tightened grip on the dragon loosened when he discovered she was rising slowly, idly unlike Gamgee who flung himself wherever he flew.

  The strength in Belle’s wings was heard in their snapping against the air, creating wind where the skies were still. They rose up, up, up...each amount of space stealing more and more air from Riah’s lungs.

  The world was tinged gold, golden clouds blushing pink in the morning’s full bloom. Color was creeping into the sky and touching the trees below with dustings of gold. The rivers below also shone the same color like molten jewels crying happy tears down the face of the soil and trees.

  Riah’s eyes slipped shut. The air smelled of honey as if the clouds cried the substance upon awakening. Belle was swerving, her angles more lean towards the ground as her wings pummeled the air on either side of her. She no longer drifted idly but soared as though determined.

  Not that he could have anyway.

  Riah’s eyes opened just in time to see two strips of rich brown cliffs parted by a rushing river and gorge hundreds of feet below it.

  His mouth fell open.

  The castle situated between these two cliffs seemed to be carved into the mountainside. The structure was just as golden as the sky with rounded terraces circling the structure like sashes on a waist. And there were roofs of light green upon were perched giant creatures.

  There had to be only three of them in view each mounted on an individual perch. And so mighty did they look with their sharp beaks point at the sky, that Riah saw how small Belle was in comparison. Aminon, perhaps, could match the size of one of these rocs, but Belle was more like Gamgee.

  Riah was so taken with the view of the castle before him that he hardly noticed when Belle had landed on a wide balcony before two double doors. He slipped off, his hand brushing her side. He turned an appreciative look towards the dragon before stepping towards the doors.

  The doors looked as though they had been fashioned by gods. Set with shimmering white stones were pillars flanking a set of ornate doors upon which were carved figures and letters in shimmering silver and sapphire. Riah could barely examine it before he stumbled back, for a figure with mussed hair and wide eyes had flung them apart.

  Surprise flickered in Arria’s eyes and stretched her features. A thin dress she evidently slept in was slipping past her shoulder. She yanked it up, her eyes narrowing. “We need to talk,” Riah said quickly with his hands flung up in a defensive motion.

  Arria stared at him for a long moment. And then at the dragon flying away. “About what?” she said at last as she turned and strode into her castle. Hesitantly, Riah followed her. He melted past billowing sheer curtains and stepped into a lengthy room much like a dining hall with pillars set at intervals instead of walls.

  “About our...moment…” he trailed off to rove his gaze over the room. Amateur sketchings were scattered everywhere. He stepped forward so he might be able to peer more closely at one. Arria’s snappish voice ha
d him switching his attention.

  “I feel nothing romantic for you, Riah. I apologize for my actions. Or wait...must I apologize? I did what I wished at the moment.”

  “As did I,” Riah said distantly.

  “So we are clear, then?”

  Riah nodded slowly. “We are.” Both paused, staring at one another until the silence was too uncomfortable. Arria rubbed her arm absently and then finally cleared her throat. “Since you are here...you might as well join me for the midday meal. I”

  “Are these yours?” Riah interrupted as he picked up a piece of thin parchment upon which a male figure had been drawn with charcoal.

  Arria was before him in a few strides and snatching the parchment away from him. “Yes, and you will not touch them.”

  Riah mumbled something indistinguishable before saying aloud, “Who is he?”

  Arria cast a glance at the parchment and seemed to become lost in thought for a long moment. Finally, she murmured, “A friend from back home.”

  “Seems like more than a friend if I am reading your body language correctly.” Riah crossed his arms, leaned back against the table and smirked. “And, Darling, I know body language.”

  Arria didn’t even bother to glare at him. “More than a friend. One I shouldn't have left.” She turned to a table where a pot of tea was simmering and a cup was laid before it. She poured a cup for herself. And then began to pour one for him, but Riah waved it away.

  He watched her but did not hear whatever she was saying. He understood now. Why they couldn't feel anything towards each other. Both had others in their former home who they shouldn’t have left. Just yet. People they loved.

  Riah swallowed hard, trying to force the ache blooming in his chest to dissipate. Riah tuned his ears back to what Arria was saying. She was snapping fingers in his face. “Did you hear me?”

  “Uh...say it again,” he stammered.

  Arria sighed before repeating herself. “Those who live in this territory are out on the hunt today. It's an annual thing. Lots of games. Most of the rocs are with them. Gamgee too.”